Mar 13 2014

Capital teachers protest use of force against Sindh counterparts

Islamabad: Federal Government College Teachers Association (FGCTA) on Wednesday observed Black Day to express solidarity with the teachers of Sindh. who were tortured by police in Karachi last month. They also had a token strike during which they boycotted their classes for ten minutes. They also held protest and condemned the behaviour of the bureaucracy. The Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association (SPLA) held a protest on February 26 in front of provincial assembly in Karachi. They were demanding speedy promotions. During their peaceful protest, the police unleashed water cannons on the male and female teachers and also used teargas, leaving a number of them injured.

Lahore: Punjab Assembly Standing Committee on education chairman Engr Qamar ul Islam Raja has said the legislation for implementaion of Article 25A is a tricky matter. Mr Raja was speaking at the Punjab Primary School Library Policy Dialogue organised by Alif Laila Book Bus Society. He said India had inserted this clause in its constitution in 2002 and implemented in 2012. The chairman said he would ensure that component of libraries in schools should be included in the law as well as in the school education department's annual budget for the fiscal 2014-15. A USAID representative also briefed the audience about the Pakistan Reading Project wherein 300 community libraries has been established in Pakistan, including 96 in Punjab.

Swabi: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, has warned the seniour education staff, including principals and headmasters, to strictly discourage cheating in board examinations otherwise action would be taken against them.

Islamaabad: The word innovation usually conjures up,facilities, but sometimes a fresh perspective can help achieve the desired results with minimum expense. This was in evidence at Kuch Khaas, where members of the Education Innovation Alliance: Kitabon Se Agay, shared ideas for improving the quality of education and accessibility on Wednesday. Arafat Majeed from National Rural Support Programme discussed the benefits of a second shift for girls from one to eighth grade in boys’ schools in Shikarpur. He stated that cultural constraints in rural Sindh was a real obstacle to co-education but starting a second shift in boys’ schools for girls was an initiative that not only increased enrollment in that shift but also in the morning shift.

Lahore: The upcoming legislation vis-à-vis Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill following the insertion of Article 25-A under the 18th Amendment will also include provision of libraries and promotion of book reading culture among the students. Engr Qamar-ul-Islam proposed to link registration of private schools with the provision of libraries for students to promote book reading among the students upon which some representatives of private schools said there was a more need to establish libraries at public schools, as their schools already had libraries.

Participants of a two-day conference have recommended setting up of a body comprised of clerics and education experts to formulate a relevant education system, said a press release. Adding on, State Minister for Education Baleeghur Rehman said the government desires to formulate an educational system which would be a combination of religious and contemporary knowledge.

Unicef findings: “Compared to 58 per cent of boys, there are 48 per cent of girls enrolled in primary school. Just over a third of Pakistani women are literate. An estimated 3.6 million children under the age of 14 mostly work in exploitative and hazardous labour. The 2005 earthquake destroyed nearly 8,000 schools, 4,000 water schemes and about 80 per cent of health centres. Polio cases have dropped from 1,100 cases in 1997 to 40 in 2006 by vaccinating 95 per cent of targeted children (32 million) at least four times a year.”

KARACHI: 'The literacy rate of females in Pakistan is at 39.6 percent compared to that of males at 67.7 percent. The objectives of education policies in Pakistan aim to achieve equality in education between girls and boys and to reduce the gender gap in the educational system. The situation of women in the country was quite miserable, and they were victims of domestic violence and sexual assault being denied of their due social, economic, political and financial rights.

The top education regulatory body seems to be trying to keep moving its work forward, or in this case, downward. It is now all set to address issues around education quality in the affiliated colleges of various universities.

PESHAWAR - To discourage classed-based education system in the province, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is going to introduce English as medium of instruction from the upcoming academic year, starting from April-2014. The dual system of education had almost closed the doors of universities and standard colleges for the poor people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and after attaining even high marks in their metric examinations, they were not allowed to take admission for F.Sc in government colleges, because most of the top seats had been occupied by the students of upper class families who spend million of rupees by getting quality education in English medium schools.